Sarah Palin has written a book for a very specific audience.

(H/T to Zina Saunders for the image. Thanks Phil!)

On virtually EVERY page of "Going Rogue" Sarah Palin mentions God.

She brings it up on page 56 when she learns of her miscarriage/abortion, ("Why God, Why?"), and then again on page 57 where she thanks God for blessing her with Bristol.

(In what can only be a completely fabricated account) She talks to God when she "learns" that Trig has Downs Syndrome, and then mentions God when she is tapped to be the VP, and again when she learns they have lost the election, and when she decided to resign her Governorship, and when she decided what to have for breakfast, and again, and again, and again.

In "Going Rogue" God is mentioned more than Todd, more than Bristol, more than Trig, and almost as many times as Sarah herself.

It is clear that this book is aimed for a very specific demographic. The demographic of believers, as opposed to the demographic of the thinkers.

As I have watched the numerous Huffington Post pieces leaked from the McCain campaign staff, and other sources, adamantly disagreeing with Palin's version of events on the campaign trial I kept thinking, "Wow she is going to destroy herself by showing the world that she is a complete fraud!"

But I failed to understand that she could not care less about the "world" that WE live in.

This book is not for "us", it is for "them".

And that point is clearly evidenced by THIS passage:

Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over.”

If your response was like mine you thought "Holy crap! She has just committed political suicide! Nobody would elect somebody that simple minded!", and if you did then you are not her target audience. You are an "intellectual elitist", and this book is not for you. It is for them.

And who are they? They are the evangelicals and biblical purists who believe that every event is a struggle between the powers of light (God, Jesus, Sarah Palin) and the forces of evil (Satan, Islam, Barack Obama). To them there are always two versions of everything. The evil version (truth) and the good version (Sarah Palin's "revealed truth"). And NOTHING that we can say will dissuade them from that point of view.

In many VERY Christian homes throughout America, "Going Rogue" will share a special place on the bookshelf sandwiched between the Bible and "The Purpose Driven Life". It will be read repeatedly by devotees looking for inspiration to tackle their own difficulties in life. And every word within will be believed as if it were carried down on stone tablets from Mt. Sinai itself.

Sarah Palin is NOT running for President. Her goals are much loftier. She wants to help control the process. She wants to, in some way, have a hand in how we pick our political leaders, either by supporting certain candidates and convincing her minions to vote for them, or by creating a third, more Christan based, party. In that way she, and her handlers, believe they can reform this country into a theocracy where only the "saved" will have influence and others are marginalized and hopefully driven out, leaving this "Christian nation" in the hands of the true believers.

Will she be successful? No. Not completely.

But the question is how much influence WILL she have ? Much of that will depend on what happens in the next couple of years. If Barack Obama does a great job, then she will only keep a rabid, racist, group of fundies paying attention to her. But if we have another terrorist attack, or the country continues to slide toward economic disaster, then she will have her opening, and her influence will grow.

Hopefully before that happens we will have revealed, for all the world to see, the "real Sarah Palin". Will that be enough? In a world driven by logic, yes. But of course the followers of Sarah Palin are not part of that world, so for them I simply cannot say.